Big fish in a strange pond: Visitors line up to check out the latest version of 'Grand Theft Auto,' which will be released in the domestic market next month, at the Tokyo Game Show in Chiba Prefecture on Thursday. | AFP-JIJI

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Japan’s gaming market a world apart

Fantasy sells while violent fare like 'Grand Theft Auto' languishes

by Kyoko Hasegawa

AFP-JIJI

CHIBA – The latest version of the blockbuster video game “Grand Theft Auto” may have stoked a worldwide buying frenzy, but the ultraviolent offering is likely to be a minnow in Japan’s vast gaming market.

Shoot-em-up video games from abroad often struggle to gain traction here, where fantasy-style games reign supreme and sell in the millions — even though many in the West have never heard of them. These include the hugely popular “Monster Hunter” franchise, which has sold 23 million copies and counting since its debut a decade ago.

“Most of them were sold in Japan even though we made an English version,” said a spokeswoman for game creator Capcom Co.

Problems in translating the language and cultural differences are among the reasons cited for the struggles of foreign game operators in Japan, a rift that was apparent as gamers flocked to the Tokyo Game Show last week. More than 600 games titles were on offer at the four-day extravaganza that wrapped up Sunday.

Though Japanese firms once dominated the global market with the likes of “Super Mario” and “Sonic the Hedgehog,” they appear to be looking increasingly inward.

“The main trends of the video game market in Japan are divided into two categories: major worldwide successes like ‘Pokemon,’ ‘Final Fantasy’ or ‘Biohazard,’ and games that are specifically designed for core Japanese gamers,” said the Asia Trend Map institute, pointing to the “overwhelming (local) dominance of games made in Japan.”

A blockbuster offering based on the popular manga “Shonen Jump” reflects a common theme; Japanese video games are often centred around a well-known character in multiple media platforms, from manga and movies to music and TV series.

Namco Bandai’s “AKB 1/149 Renai Sosenkyo,” a popular dating simulation game built around the AKB48 brand, is the kind of title known to most at home but with little name familiarity abroad.

“The title isn’t suited to foreign markets,” said company spokesman Toshiaki Honda.

Even Sony Corp. is releasing its PlayStation 4 abroad before it hits store shelves at home — a first — with executives saying game titles expected to be popular in Japan won’t be ready in time.

Eiji Araki, senior official of mobile social game maker Gree Inc., said, “We’ve learned that characters and visuals favored in the United States are different from those in Japan.”

For some, the unique character of the domestic gaming market encapsulates the so-called Galapagos Syndrome, in which firms concentrate almost solely on Japanese consumers.

Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Samsung Electronic Co.’s Galaxy smartphones were a little slow to catch on here as many mobile carriers focused on homegrown flip-phone offerings.

While the iPhone is now selling well domestically, a ride on a Tokyo subway underscores another unique aspect of the nation’s gaming market — a love of handheld devices. Commuters on the city’s vast transportation network are frequently seen thumbing away on portable gaming devices to pass the time.

For one official at Tokyo-based Computer Entertainment Rating Organization, the love of fantasy and role-playing games in Japan’s low crime society stands in stark contrast to the brutal depictions of urban violence in “Grand Theft Auto.”

“Japanese consumers prefer family-use games to those with violent, anti-social or extreme expressions of sexuality,” the official said.

A report by Internet group GMO Cloud characterizes the difference as “self-escapism versus self-expression.”

Whether or not that’s true, “Grand Theft Auto” is undoubtedly violent, especially when compared with Nintendo Co.’s award-winning “Animal Crossing: New Leaf,” in which players take on the role of a mayor running a rural community.

By contrast, past releases in the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise have included simulated sex with prostitutes and drunken driving, along with profanity-packed dialogue.

Carjacking, gambling and killing are the staples of a game in which players take on the role of a psychopathic killer in a fictional Los Angeles.

When “Grand Theft Auto IV” was released five years ago, it blew away video game and Hollywood records by making an unprecedented $500 million in the week after its release, and it shows few signs of slowing with the game’s fifth incarnation released a few days ago.

Hisakazu Hirabayashi of Tokyo-based consultancy firm InteractKK said he expects the game’s newest version to have relative success among Japanese consumers — at least “for a Western game.”

  • JTCommentor

    I dont know how much of that game is about dating minors, how many of that group are minors, or how subtle that premise is – but it is kind of weird that it would be so shockingly unacceptable in foreign markets, when a game like GTA – where you can have intercourse with a prostitute, and then proceed to beat her to death with a baseballbat and steal back your money, walking over her body and leaving bloody footprints, or run down a granny in your latest stolen car, mow down police with automatic weapons and so on – is freely available, and ultra popular.

    While clearly neither act in real life is acceptable by western standards, surely those depicted in GTA have to be worse than formulating romantic relationships with members of a group with minors in it (if indeed that is what the Japanese game is about).

    • Ron NJ

      Good example with GTA. I think an important distinction to make is that we have, as an international society in the west, had a very long and drawn out discussion of “is this level of violence and law-breaking acceptable in video games?” occurring over the past decade and a half or so. I can’t recall having ever heard anyone in the domestic Japanese media discussing whether video games that basically depict dating minors is acceptable (certainly not major mainstream media), and there is no ratings mechanism for such content in the Japanese market, where these kinds of games are quite popular. When’s the last time you saw CERO give a dating game a rating of Z (18 and up) for “romantic themes involving minors” compared to PEGI 18 or ESRB M for “graphic depictions of violence, use of alcohol, etc”? In fact, the AKB game in question was given a CERO rating of “B” – acceptable for users ages 12 and up.
      We have also had some tacit agreement that minors comprise a group which is to be protected, both from and in harmful aspects of video games – the wildly popular Fallout and Skyrim games, for example, specifically made non-player characters which were shown as children invulnerable, because we have agreed that there are certain situations children should not be depicted as taking part in. I would include “forming romantic relationships with adults” in that list, but maybe that’s just me.
      There is certainly a level of cultural friction at play regarding this situation, but I don’t believe that Japanese views of minors are so fantastically different – rather, I think that the “idol groups” simply get ignored for some reason when considering these issues.

  • KuchikiSentou

    I think the crux of this article is
    Self Escapism v Self Expression.
    West v East in true classical summation.

    • RiceDealer

      Actually, after talking to a few people about it, I think it’s more a matter of enjoying choices and consequences vs. escapism.

      The first RPG I played was Knights of the Old Republic. It has a four-part morality scale – good, evil and then pure good and pure evil. You got a different skill tree for being good or evil, and if you were pure, you got an extra bonus.
      In that game, there were consequences to your actions, and you could choose to be moral or not.

      The few JRPG’s I’ve played have no choice in them whatsoever. And my students who I’ve talked to about it have never even heard of such a thing.

      But, again, this article is dishonest and has a specific Japan=good; gaikoku=bad agenda, because there are more games in the world than GTA. They could have bothered to mention this – they could have explained that non-Japanese games offer choices whereas Japanese games don’t. Instead, they decided to go with “Japanese gamers don’t like anti-social games.” Good god, talk about weasel words and bad journalism. Games where you can choose your own path are “anti-social”? So, a game like Animal Crossing where you can’t choose anything but the decoration in your house are superior?

      I think the thing this article isn’t bothering to point out is that we don’t know how violent Japanese gamers tend to be because Japanese game companies don’t bother giving them the choice to be.

  • http://www.pureenterprise.com/ Dylan Robertson

    I was responsible for the GMO Cloud report, which we published in October 2012 and was largely ignored until this article. You can see it on SlideShare.net/gmocloud – see page 36. It has been quoted out of context in several articles recently. It was never referring to GTA or the other games mentioned in this article or by the commenters. It was just trying to make some broad generalizations, which is what market reports are for. No offense was intended and we welcome any criticisms and feedback.

  • RiceDealer

    Oh, and one more thing I think really needs to be mentioned about the gaming world: Japan’s most popular card game among children, Duel Masters, was created and designed entirely by an American company for the Japanese market.

    So, you know, it turns out Japanese kids LOVE American (card) games. Oh, and the people who made DM also make Magic: the Gathering, which has some very progressive presentations of gender and race and no extreme sexual imagery – all of which went out the window for the Japanese market when they made DM, a product aimed directly at boys and boys only. But, well, that doesn’t fit the narrative of “Japan=good; gaikoku=bad.”

    Because, see, if you compare MtG to a Japanese TCG, you’ll find that MtG comes out WAY on top of the gratuitous cartoon sexuality present in the Japanese TCG market. MtG is tame and mature and all-ages – whereas there are a few Japanese TCG’s that seem to be focused entirely on little girls in their panties. Hm. Again, though, this doesn’t fit the narrative, does it? Talking about that doesn’t make Japan look good.

    None of the children I live and work with have any idea that TCG’s in general, let alone Duel Masters in particular, is a 100% American product. Why should they? It doesn’t fit the narrative.

    Why don’t we focus on the really, truly great parts of Japan and stop pretending that their garbage doesn’t stink? This article is yet another example of someone taking Japan’s garbage and trying to convince us that it’s gold. I’ve seen Japan’s gold. AKB48 and Animal Crossing aren’t it. AKB48 is garbage, and Animal Crossing is asinine. GTA may be more violent than Animal Crossing, but at least GTA lets you think for yourself and make actual decisions.

  • RiceDealer

    “In Japan a visual novel can make it onto the sales chart”

    Not sure how that demonstrates that the Japanese gaming market is less violent or sexual. No one has sex or gets shot in visual novels? Huh.

    And so what if a Japanese game has you fighting monsters or mechs? Americans find killing defenseless animals way worse than killing people. And there are no people in the mechs? Is killing animals less antisocial? Considering that animal abuse is considered a sign of sociopathy…I don’t know, is Monster Hunter a game for sociopaths?

    I find a game like Pokemon kinda dishonest. You “knock out” a little animal? And then what? It’s violence without consequences, which I kinda think is worse in a way. A kid sees that if he knocks an animal out and just leaves it on the ground, it’s a-ok. Hey, that does kinda sound a little sociopathic…

  • KuchikiSentou

    “The violence in Japanese games is more coy, more dishonest.” – Hilarious… with a tinge of intolerance?

    I feel like with the sexual points, you are the one infusing that sexuality and at that, nobody is innocent to sex/sexuality in games. Just as violence is a fact, sexuality is as well. So let’s get that straight.

    Pokemon is a popular game that has kids training and catching monsters and duelling them. We construe them as animals for the sake of discussion. But I feel we would be painting a very different picture if it were humans being subjected to such violence.

    Pulling the legs off a praying mantis or immersing it in dilute acid and watch its limbs fall off, or whatever counts as cruelty to animals according to this website of yours seems to be arbitrary. There are many types of animals with varying levels of importance to strike an emotional reaction. Hurting a fly is different from hurting a gerbil. Very different.

    Even the most diehard of animal lovers has squished a cockroach, swatted a mosquito, even partaken in delicious dog meat burger recently. Any attempt to vilify such treatment of animals puts animals on the same level as people. Which is wrong. We fought long and hard to make it to the top of the food chain, if ever we were not at the top. Animals don’t have “rights” inherently, we merely infuse those rights. We are not bound by them. This is why Americans can decide not to eat dogs but can eat pigs whereas both are capable of functioning as domesticated pets.

    Not just the association, but the general notion that killing animals is antisocial is highly suspect. After all, a child at that age is not fully cognisant of the law, or other moral issues, as compared to an adult of GTA or SplinterCell age, who knows the moral and legal repercussions of killing people and seeks to escape that reality by engaging heavily in such video games. Yes you could find Japanese games that have you killing people en masse. Dynasty Warriors, Sengoku Basara… but can you compare the level of realism in GTA or Battlefield, CoD SplinterCell, to that in Musou Orochi? The realistic nature of these Western games’ portrayal of violence is the distinction here.

    “this article is a big mess of “Japan=good; gaikoku=bad”

    All you mate. The article merely poses an observation of a game like Grand Theft Auto and other popular franchises in the industry based on the singular act of killing human beings. The lines for GTA at TGS were relatively smaller than the lines to play God Eater, or Soul Sacrifice Delta. The article attempts to explain the reason for the discrepancy. There was a Western developer who made similar points about why Japanese games are not as popular in America as they used to be, due to games like Call of Duty etc, becoming more prevalent in the market. Look at how most of the games rely more on raw animation than mocap. It’s the inherent distinction of fantasy against reality that divides these markets.

    The article is much more objective than you think. I think perhaps the site or the novel perspective is preventing you from noticing such an astute observation.

    • RiceDealer

      1) but the general notion that killing animals is antisocial is highly suspect.

      No, it’s not. Do I have to explain why murdering an animal is wrong? Perhaps I do, since, above, you were arguing that it’s ok to date children.

      2) After all, a child at that age is not fully cognisant of the law, or other moral issues, as compared to an adult

      Precisely my point. Is it not a little anti-social to just give a child a game where he is tasked with forcing animals to fight while they are unable to parse the moral significance of it?

      3) “The article is much more objective than you think”

      Not at the points where they try to paint the Japanese game market as innocent and pure, it’s not. The article tried to explain the differences between the markets, but it fell into tired cliches about how the Japanese are non-violent, peace loving, &c., &c., and foreigners are violence-mongers. It’s so tiring hearing the same nonsense over and over and over again. I’d like to hear a REAL reason for this difference, not some more xenophobic nonsense.

  • KuchikiSentou

    Statutory rape”? That is a very subjective term. Age of consent varies across many countries. So I feel like you’re infusing your country’s standards and perception onto another person’s.

    Dating is not the same as having sex.

    • RiceDealer

      “Dating is not the same as having sex.”

      Well, gee, neither does marriage. Not all marriages involve sex, but that sure as hell does seem to be a common element of it. Dating leads to sex, don’t be obtuse. You’re technically right – dating is not the same as having sex – but you’re being obtuse by pretending not to understand what dating actually is in real life.

      The members of AKB48 I’m referring to are 13. That’s a child. Whether or not its technically legal, dating a 13-year-old is pedophilia. Why are you trying to defend dating a 13-year-old child? Seriously.

  • Alberto Corral Diez

    i live in Spain and it´s really frustrating how videogames company don´t bring their cool games to Europe, or we have to wait more than six moths because they have to translate. maybe nintendo break the wall with pokemon X , Y launching worldwide the tittle. thats the path, we can´t wait six or one year to play the same game that the companies had launched in japan. we are customers like japanese .I love Monster hunter 4 why I have to wait ? that capcom finally say yes or not to sell the game in Europe one year later, don´t have enough money to hire translators?

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Big fish in a strange pond: Visitors line up to check out the latest version of 'Grand Theft Auto,' which will be released in the domestic market next month, at the Tokyo Game Show in Chiba Prefecture on Thursday. | AFP-JIJI

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